special operations forces and great power competition in the 21st Century
America is moving from one era of foreign policy to another: The primacy of counterter-rorism has faded, and competition with authoritarian great powers is the dominant concern. • While special operations forces (SOF) understand that they must play a role in great-power competition, they often lack a clear understanding of what that entails. • SOF can support great-power competition in five ways: gathering information, working with allies and partners, imposing costs, handling crisis response, and undertaking strategic raids. • In addition, retaining competency in counterterrorism is itself a crucial contribution to great-power competition, because suppressing non-state threats is the prerequisite to allowing the rest of the American government to focus on other things.
